As discussed in R. Ng, “Digital Light Field Photography,” Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, June 2006 and in Ng et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/278,708, for “Correction of Optical Aberrations”, filed Jan. 26, 2009, a light-field camera can digitally correct for aberrations of the main lens. In a traditional 2D camera, aberration in the lens causes the lens to focus to a large spot size, resulting in reduced resolving power.
However, as described in the above-cited related provisional application, traditional lens design principles do not necessarily apply to light-field cameras. In a light-field camera, optical deviations from an ideal geometric thin lens (referred to as aberrations) can be digitally corrected by capturing the individual light rays. In fact, in some applications, as discussed in the above-cited related U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/920,709, light-field camera performance can be improved by intentionally adding aberration to the lens.
One issue that arises in construction of lenses for light-field cameras is that, even if the lens of the light-field camera can be constructed with the desired properties, the solution is not always easily scalable to a large system that can support all shipping units under various lens configurations (zoom/focus).